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Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. This is The Way. I'm Zach. If we've never met... Hey. And I'm Michelle. And if we've never met... I was just thinking, like... I just said if we never met, but I probably haven't met most people who are watching, which is kind of sad. Maybe we'll do, like... Should we do, like, a meet-and-greet sometime soon?

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Did I just promise something that we can't promise? I don't think you're that important, Zach. I don't think, yeah. I'll just cut this whole beginning. It's all about Jesus, not about us. That's right. That's right. Yeah, anyway, if you've never met me, I'm Michelle. Nice to meet you. Yeah, this is Michelle. And, hey, we've got another exciting episode. We're here live on set.

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At Alpha, filming the new series. We're going to talk a little bit more about that later. But for now, let me introduce you to my good friend, Jack Lazell. Hello, guys. Jack, welcome, bro. So excited to have you hear a little bit about your story. We were just chatting, saying, like, we've probably known each other

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almost three years at this point um but i've never actually like heard your story so i'm really really excited to dive into that yeah um and you're so welcome here bro thanks i'm super excited it's gonna be it's gonna be fun come on hey well i thought we would just start you you just told us as we were setting up the cameras that you first said yes to jesus when you were three

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Yes. So I heard the download from my mum this morning, actually. She was giving me the insight and my parents used to be... We used to go to these conferences and camps called New Wine. And the little groups that you go to as a kid, it's called like...

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pebbles or boulder gang they're all like related after like different stones and stuff so i was in pebbles and rocking it up and uh they said would you like to become a christian would you like for jesus to be your forever best friend and apparently i said yes um but because my parents were there um you know serving at all the festivals and stuff yeah we had week a b and c so week a gave my love to jesus and then two weeks later week b

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also give my life to Jesus again so I just wanted to confirm that twice so um yeah but it was cool it was super super clear to everyone and um yeah no my mom was saying this morning that um even though I was so young I definitely knew she said I knew what I was doing I knew like the the gravitas of what I was I was doing um

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See, that was really cool. And then just kind of grew up in a Christian home my whole life. So through highs and lows, we've always felt like God has definitely been around the family, real like foundation of our family, which has been like such a blessing. And I feel super, super privileged to have that. So, yeah, that was probably the first moment that, although I can't really necessarily remember it, to be honest. Yeah, I love how you had to actually ask your mum about that. Yeah. So sweet.

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So sweet. Was there ever a point like since then when along your journey when you kind of like weren't passionate about pursuing Jesus or were you kind of always like pursuing him for a relationship with him after that?

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Yeah. Like I literally, I'd never had, um, I think fortunately I've never had that like off the rails moment, which is, which is, which is great. So, um, yeah, always been like super passionate about it, but I particularly remember times. So we moved to London in 2010, um, was part of HDB, which is like an amazing, um, time, especially with the youth group, like just like loads of kids, loads of people my age going for it. And, um,

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We were at Focus one year, which is their summer festival. And I think I just remember being in the worship in the final night, like on the big top, you know, the whole week's been sort of ramping up to it. And yeah, they're just singing the worship and I'll get up there. I'll just remind myself of the song that they were singing. It was...

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Just come out. You're checking the document that your mum sent you. That's so good. Check the facts. I love that. It was a live fact check. Yeah. So the song that they were singing was Set Apart by Tim Hughes. And I think it just come out with, like, the Worship Central guys. It was amazing. And I just had this realisation that, like...

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It says set apart for the one we love. Um, and that I have a responsibility to be set apart for him. Not just like, this is something that is recognized with my family or like my, um, my brothers or my parents or my friends and stuff, but actually, so that's something for me specifically. Um, yeah. And that was probably the moment that I really like grabbed faith by the horns, um, and just like took it. And, um, yeah, that was really powerful for me in my story. Yeah. How old were you at that point?

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So I think I would have been about, yeah, 13 or 14 potentially. And I just, I just knew that this is something that God's got a plan for my life. And I want to, I want to lean into that. I don't want to drift away. And what was amazing was the way that people in church, like kind of came around me at various different things, various different youth leaders, church leaders, just sort of shared life into my life. They, they,

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from a quite a young age i got a quite a few prophetic words about stepping into leadership and things like that and um i guess i had a choice really of do i choose to step in and use that for like god's glory or do i choose to just like recognize that that's a thing um but slightly ignore it um and and that's sort of where i yeah i just thought no i want i want to use this for god's glory um

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I guess I'm quite a matter of fact person. So I just like, yeah, cool. If I'm going to do that, then yeah, I'm all in. Let's go for it. So that's really exciting. What was that like? Like that journey of saying, OK, yes, God. And then getting those prophetic words of like, oh, you're meant to be in leadership. All of that. How did how did that develop from that point?

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I probably felt a bit of an element of excitement around that. And there's something that I probably had to grapple with for a little bit in terms of, actually, it's nothing, it's not about me. It's more to do with how can I serve God? And so if he's given me, if anything that he's given me is to glorify him, not to glorify myself. And so there's definitely something that I,

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wrestled with with a couple of people and just around pride potentially even from a young age that was probably as a kid maybe a little bit too prideful and yeah so now having a bit more um understanding of how things work is is exciting but i think there was also an element and that probably came from a fear of um pressure i put on myself that i've got to step into this and my parents had this role in ministry which was like such a gift and so amazing and

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is super powerful um but also like living up to that expectation in in certain ways um and so yeah just through wrestling with people um chatting with people prayer and through god just doing a working of realizing actually my own life is um is of value and it's not reflective of something that they've done um which is which has been so powerful and um

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Yeah, really grounded me, I'd say, in an amazing way. And I used to have this note on my pinboard at home. And I just used to worry a lot about the future, basically. It's like, okay, if these words have been spoken over my life,

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what on earth does that look like? Because I like, where do I start? I feel like there's this sort of pressure to deliver. And I just, it just says like, don't worry, God has a plan. And it was really simple. And then it's based off of, I think it's Matthew 6. And it's like, do not worry about your lives. So that for me was just such a constant reminder, reassurance. God's got a plan for my life. I want to step into that, but I don't necessarily need to know what that looks like day to day. Yeah, absolutely.

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I remember being at that age, coming out of high school, and I guess even just like nearing the end of high school and just thinking about like, what am I going to do? And everyone's always asking you like, what are you going to do with your life? What are you going to do? And I think, yeah, it's kind of tough, but the Lord does have it in his hands. And I heard recently it's more about who you're going to become than what you're going to do, which I thought was so facts. Because your parents are in ministry. Is that right as well?

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Uh, somewhat, but, but not, not kind of professionally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they, they were like really involved in church growing up. Did you find that there was much like, how did you find that? There was, for me, it was more pressure in, um, in like business leadership.

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Because they were, my dad runs a business. And so it was that same sort of pressure of like, oh gosh, what business am I going to lead? Or like, yeah, what am I going to do with my life? And I remember I was working in construction for a year. And my dad, I don't think he was trying to be like unhelpful. But he was like, hey, like, pal, just want to know like, what are your thoughts on the future? Like, yeah.

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Because, you know, I think the Lord probably has more for you than construction. And I was like, wait, what the flip? Like, I got a vibe with construction. I thought it was awesome. What were you doing? I did a year of construction as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What did you do? I was just like the bottom. I was the bottom of the pile. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Yeah, bags of cement. And then it was during COVID. So like, they were like, go paint this house. Yeah. All right. Yeah, so random. So random. But it was great fun. Learned a lot. Like, at what point did you kind of take it on yourself? Because I feel like there's a point when everyone...

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kind of goes from like the expectation that's placed on them to a personal passion. Like was there a point at which you transitioned from there was that expectation over your future to like now I know you're highly involved in Alpha. Was there a point when you just suddenly started being like, oh, I wanna share my faith, I wanna lead people to Christ, I wanna work in ministry professionally?

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Yeah. So I just, just to preface, like the pressure that I felt to, to step into that was only put on by myself. Like no one else really around me. Everything that people were sharing about that was all encouragement and it was all loving and stuff. But it was just something that I just, for whatever reason, decided.

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right, I've now got this pressure on me. So it was like nothing that my parents did or nothing that any youth pastors or anything did. But yeah, I just felt this pressure. And it was tiny, like it was just like a little niggle in the back of my mind, but that can kind of build up if you don't deal with it. Yeah. But I always took the...

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stuff that people would say quite seriously. You know, if someone says, oh, can you go and do this? I try and act on it pretty quickly. And so when I'm being encouraged to share my faith or, you know, invite friends to church, even from year seven, I remember having, there'd be like a youth night on or something and they'd be saying, invite your friends. So we were going ice skating at the Natural History Museum. They had a cool ice rink. And then we would head off to like the back to the youth room afterwards. And I just remember all my mates from school, like,

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just wrestling, like fighting in this youth room. And literally they still to this day say to me like, oh, do you remember that time we went ice skating and they just like wrestled in this, like in your church? Wait, who was looking after you? I don't know. It was fun. Like it was great. We just, you know, when you power like beanbags on and you're just like dumping each other and stuff. So that was great fun. I think that was probably the first time I remember inviting someone who didn't go to church, nor me.

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to church and then just kind of never stopped. And so there was one, there was one time when I was sitting in history, maybe I just sort of drifting off, but it just felt like a prompting in my head. I don't even, I wasn't praying or anything particularly, but I just felt like a call, some words to invite this guy who, yeah, had never really like connected with people at school so much. And I gave him a ring and he, when I invited him, he said, I'm,

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He thought I was prank calling him. He was like basically, because no one had ever asked him to hang out outside of school or anything. So invited this guy to come and just saw like an amazing change in him. Like he had a fresh start. He was able to make new friends. And that was really powerful and cool. And then just from that,

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um, ended up doing alpha at church because I was attending HGB and they don't stop banging on about it, which is amazing. But I was like, let me go check out like what this thing is. I think I was about 15 probably when I was, and I went to the, um, the, the adult alpha actually. Um, I don't think the youth one was really kicking in the same way that it is now. And, um, um,

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Yeah, I was probably just such an annoying kid, like in this group, you know, a couple, quite a few years younger than everyone else and had all the answers, like giving all these church kid answers, but I'm just talking way too much, which is not what you're supposed to do really on Alpha.

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But they just listened loads and the food was so good. So I just kept coming back. The food is great. Yeah, and then I loved it. So I just loved it and heard this testimony from this guy called Ben Giuliano, who was sharing about how he ran Alpha in his school and just saw amazing change in his school. And I thought, well, if that guy can do it, then I can do it. And so, yeah, gave it a go.

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How did it go? Was it like, how many people came? Because I always picture, if I was to run Alpha in my school, I'm like, I don't think anyone would have come from being real. But did people actually? People would have come. I think like looking back on it now, like maybe, yeah, probably some people would have come. But at the time, like my parents were like, oh, you should run Alpha. Yeah. Dad, no one's coming to Alpha. Like what are we doing?

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Yeah. So I was in, when I was in year 11, I went to my, um, like a senior member of staff at the school and said, can I run alpha? And they just said, no. Wait, they just said no. And I was like, okay, cool. So I just waited a year and, uh, started if I asked if I could start a Christian union and they said yes. And so we just ran alpha in this Christian union. Um, that's so smart.

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yeah we just like kicked it off there's a couple of guys who were sort of a bit in and out of church and some some there's one a few people this guy who i invited to the youth group i was like okay you're on my team for alpha and this other guy who i knew was going to church and

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you're on my team. And so, um, I just got them together. So this, what we're planning on doing. And then, um, cause our lunch break was only like, we had half an hour and people then wanted to go and eat food and stuff. I would like cut up the videos in my room, um, and sit on the Thursday night before, um, before Friday, Friday. And, um, yeah, just cut it up. And, um,

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the different sections that I thought, oh, this would be really powerful for people to watch. And then we would just chat about it. And I would go, you know, the Sainsbury's cookies, those like bags of cookies. Grab a couple of those before school, chuck them on the table, say who's coming to Alpha. And they'd be like, yeah, I'll come to God Squad. That's what they called it. They just called it God Squad.

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Yeah, it was amazing. And there was a teacher who was a Christian, the philosophy teacher, and he supported me literally through just running, just unlocking the door to the room, logging onto the laptop, and then let me do everything. So he was like amazing in the sense that he didn't try and like control anything, but really release us as a group to do that. And we had about, like these are not concrete things.

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But I would say we had probably, well, we definitely had at least 50% of my year come and do alpha. What? And then we had maybe like an estimate, like 85% to 90, like dip into at least like one session or something.

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So that was just like amazing to see people at lunchtime, you know, coming back from lunch and going, where is everyone? And then people were like, oh, we've just been at God Squad. Or like, they've just been Alpha. And yeah, having conversations about it. And yeah, we saw a couple of people get baptised from that, which is amazing. And it's just, it was just, yeah, a great time, a great time. And then COVID happened. So we all finished school early. So that was fun. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

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Okay, okay, okay. Picture I'm a 16-year-old, okay? Okay. And I want to run ALF in my school for my friends to know Jesus. What's like your biggest tip for me? Okay.

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I think the first thing is pray about it. Ask God, is he asking you to do it? You might not hear an audible yes or a no, but if you think, yeah, I feel passionate about this and I'm feeling prompted to do that, then pray.

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Yeah, go for it and make sure God's in that conversation and then build a build, build a bit of a team. So whether that looks like a friend that is curious, you know, they don't even have to necessarily be a Christian, but just saying, hey, look, I'm interested. I want to do this thing. You might be curious. Would you be up for helping me plan it or gathering some people or just inviting some friends? And it can start. You can go really.

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you can start really big or you could just start really small. It doesn't have to be the next big thing that's happening. Just getting your friends together and talking about faith is such a powerful thing. And you just don't know what God wants to do from that. And so gathering a few people who you think might be passionate about it or interested and then just meeting, you know, so valid. That's what, that's what I do. Wow. What about, okay, same question, but, um,

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I want to have a conversation with someone who's curious about faith. So say, I'm still 16-year-old Zach. This is my friend, 16-year-old Michelle. And 16-year-old Michelle is a little bit curious about faith. Give me your best tip on how do I start to introduce 16-year-old Michelle to Jesus. Oh, who's Jesus? Okay.

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Well done. You're playing your part well. You're playing your part well. How curious are you? Like, are you that curious? You're literally coming or are you just... I've come... Well, I don't go to church ever. Never been before. My family aren't Christians, but this guy does Alpha, knows Jesus. Don't know who that is. Like...

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Sorry, I just love how you just jumped straight into character. Like, you just made a whole character. That's awesome. Okay, yeah. What are you studying at the moment? How's your TSCs going? Well, you know, maths and English are compulsory. Yeah, how many siblings do you have? What sports do you play? But I'm curious, I'm curious. I think the first step is allowing people to know that you're Christian.

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that has to be the first thing. And so that is the hardest hurdle to get over. And so from the age of year seven, like year seven, whether that's like 11 or 12, I went to church and just, I wasn't ashamed of it. And so people knew that I was the Christian kid, the Vickers kid. And there were some weird questions that I got asked. Oh, there always is. Yeah. Like about probably some like inappropriate things or like people like sort of taking the mick and stuff. But yeah,

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I just, it just never fazed me really, I think. And I just wanted to, yeah, like make sure that people knew that I was a Christian, that I went to church and wasn't ashamed about it. That's by far the biggest hurdle. And if your friends don't know you're a Christian,

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that can be really hard to then introduce that. That's so true. And then I think just saying, sharing about finding time to actually talk to people in like in depth rather than just how was your day? How's the homework? Right. All of that stuff. And so asking questions around being there for people as a friend, and then you can share your own personal story, which is the most powerful thing that we all hold. We all hold...

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um, a story. And it says, um, in acts one, a, it says you will be my witnesses. And it's actually like, not everyone is an evangelist specifically, but we can all be witnesses for Jesus. So good. And, um, like I've heard it said before that it's the, the, the word to witness is, um,

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like it's a, it's a, the word witness in that passage is a proper noun. And so it's not about like, you will be a witness at some point or yesterday, Michelle, you were witnessing, but you are, you are, you are living as a witness for Jesus constantly. And so your story is so powerful to your friends. And, um,

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You know, I heard this testimony from this guy who was sharing a talk the other day at this massive like Christian conference for students. It was the UCCF like national conference. And he was saying that he became a Christian because his mum prayed for him when he was a kid.

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the best cricket player at school spoke to him about Jesus for three minutes on a coach. He got to university and there were two guys that he never spoke to that he played football with, who he could tell were Christians by the way that they lived. They never, they never spoke to him.

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And then there was this couple who invited him to a carol service in his final year of university. He said no to the invitation. And then he came along, came late, left early. And then in that they knew they didn't know that he came. He never saw them. He hid at the back. And he in that night in his room, God met him in his bedroom and he gave his life to Jesus. Now, other than his mom,

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none of those people in that story know that the impact that they've made on this guy's life. But through living out their faith as a Christian, being a witness to Jesus, living out kingdom values has impacted this guy. And he's now leading Christians in sport, which is like, you know, helping thousands of people across the country to live out their faith in their sporting world. And so you just don't know the impact that being obedient to what God is calling you into can make. And so,

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If you can step into that, then God will use that tenfold, twentyfold. Wow. That's so powerful. And I'm like so encouraged by that. You know, I think a lot of the time we can think, oh, the only way that I can share my faith with somebody is by saying it. Obviously, yes, you can do that. But also it's just by like living your life out and being, like you said, a constant witness to Jesus and his goodness. I'm like, I'm just curious about,

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because we obviously we know Jack a little bit um you've led Alpha at your school but then also at uni like can you tell us more about that experience

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Yeah. So after having done it at school and just seeing kind of the change in people's lives, I was like, well, this thing's pretty cool. So let's just keep going with it. And so we had, we had COVID for a couple of years and ran Alpha online, just out my room with some friends. We had like two or three groups meeting online, which was really cool. And so yeah, got to university and saw it was a bit of a no brainer that we try and start Alpha on the campus. And I,

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I went to Bath University and the girl that I went to primary school with was on the committee in the CU. And so I just gave her a little message and I said, hey, like I'm coming. Do you think I could think about running Alpha on campus with you guys? What would that look like? And so by the second term of my first year, we launched the course on the campus. And there were amazing opportunities.

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churches in Bath that were running out for at the same time. But what we were trying to bring was a space that we felt was missing in the sense of a space outside of the church building that was really easily accessible for people to explore faith in a place where they're constantly curious about loads of things. So, you know, you get to university and it's a very captive audience. People are trying new things. They can't try and have sailing. They're trying skateboarding. They're trying photography for the first time. Like, why not try,

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Jesus, give that a go. And so, um, that's what we wanted to create. And that really looked like, um, building a team again, of people who I thought were passionate about Jesus. Um, and once we'd built that team, um, and we started to see people come and, uh, we saw, uh, maybe the course started with about 25.

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five people or so which was like i was pretty happy with not that it's about the numbers but you know it's a good start yeah and we saw people become christians so you know this guy became a christian on that first course and um we then had uh actually one of the girls who did alpha with me at school was also at uni with me in bath

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And so she didn't become a Christian. She's, um, as she's still not a Christian, um, but she was living with this girl who's really curious. And she said, well, I've got this friend called Jack who I went to school with. He runs this like weird Christian thing. You should like go try it out. So she, a non-Christian invited her friend that she just met to come and do alpha on campus. Um, yeah.

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And this girl, she becomes a Christian and she lives really close to me in London. So she's, you know, we live together in Farinaw. She's now at my church at home. And she's actually at the Alpha on set right now. Oh my God. Yeah. So she's here. So it's like amazing that the way that God was like threading everything through from what we're doing in school to...

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to university um and just to be able to see her now inviting her friends to alpha so we'll be at alpha tonight and she's brought a couple of her friends along to that so it's just amazing testimony that is so awesome

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Wow. That's crazy. I've heard so many times people, oh, God uses everything. But sometimes it's still so unexpected. Yeah. Like that's crazy. Yeah. For someone who doesn't know Jesus to invite a friend to Alpha to meet Jesus.

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I think it's powerful. I think it's testament really to the fact that it's like nothing to do with anything I'm doing, basically. Because it's just, I just couldn't orchestrate that as much as I, like, even if I tried. And, you know, when we, we run, so we ran alpha when I was there, we ran it five times. And what I failed to do at school was to create longevity with the course. We wanted it to be something that...

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when I left university after three years, it would be something that would continue to run. And so that it doesn't actually rely on me being there, but actually there is, um, there's always a space for people to explore faith on campus in Bath. That was the, that was what we were trying to do. And, um,

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Yeah. So part of that was like the financial side of things. And so we're just praying for some money and the team that we built were contributing to the food and that was great. But for me to be like, Hey Zach, by the way, do you mind like leading out for next term? And just to let you know, you know, you've got to pay for that as well. Is that cool as a student? So that was a bit of a barrier that I found between

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this like longevity of what we were trying to do. And so praying for that, we ended up some, the CU started giving us like 12 pounds a week, which was great, but like not tons of money. That got then taken away a bit. And so I was just like, God, what, like, what do you, if you want me to continue doing this,

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what how are you going to provide like what's what's the solution to this and so I was just starting my um second uh the first term of second year I was just chatting to my parents just letting them know like this is like keeping them updated and my they're so amazing and um my mum was just saying well why don't you just email the guys uh someone at someone at alpha and uh and see what they say and I said no I'm not

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not doing that. I'm not going to do that. They don't care about my little course that's running in Bath. Um, and, um, yeah, so just, that was that, like I just left it, didn't do anything. Interesting. And then in two months later in November, um, just felt prompted one night to, to email and just said, not like, can we have some money for our little course that's running?

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But really what's Alpha's strategy for students across the UK? You know, this was in 2023, I think. Oh no, end of 2022. We're seeing and hearing rumblings of like there's a real openness to people at the moment. What are we doing about this? Are we as Christians an option for people to explore? Or are we sitting on the sidelines watching everyone else play ball? And so that was my kind of question to the guys at Alpha. And just got a response the next day.

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saying thanks so much for your email um it's been forwarded on to head of alpha uk alpha global and the vice president of alpha and we're just gonna unbeknownst to me they were chatting they were at a conference those two days um and so at breakfast that next morning they were chatting about what are we going to do for students and again just testament to what god was doing behind the scenes like i had no idea that they were there at that conference in that same room together

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Where is that heading now? Like, because obviously they're filming stuff upstairs. I didn't actually know that there was, like, I was unaware of, like, this alpha in students and universities, colleges, ministry. Yeah. Where is that heading now?

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Yeah, well, so what happened was that later that day, someone really randomly just sent me 500 pounds and just said, I feel like I need to bless you with this. And so it was like God saying, send that email, you know, kickstart that fire.

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And then here's the, here's the finances that you've been praying for. And so just unlocking that door. And we always say to people, like, be careful what you ask for, especially with, because then they, the guys at Alpha said to me, like, well, why don't you come and be the person to come and do some of that strategy? Think about what we're going to do for the students. Come on.

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so yeah to answer your question in my final year did some some stuff with them part-time and then tried to resist when finishing uni to go into ministry but yeah God was like now what are you doing so yeah I've been working full-time doing that for for Alpha trying to look at how can we support students running Alpha for their friends churches running Alpha for students and engaging that and so in terms of

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what's really exciting about what they're filming upstairs now is that this is aimed, it's being aimed at that demographic, you know, your 20 to 25 year old person. So it does, it makes my job really easy because it's going to be amazing for them. And so I'm saying, how do we prepare as a church for this new thing that's going to be purpose built for guys who are so curious about faith?

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And what do you think? How should we be preparing as a church? Big C. Yeah, I think I think what's happening is amazing. And, you know, we don't want to say the R words, renewal, revival. Like we'll keep that on the down low. But what's happening, I think, is is super encouraging.

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But I think it's, I just sense it's only a snippet of really what God is wanting to do. And we were at a conference over summer and, you know, talking as a church as well, we've been talking about Elisha in Two Kings. When this widow who is got this debt that she needs to pay back and she's like, I don't know where I'm going to, how I'm going to pay this debt back.

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And it's like, have you got anything in your house? And so she's got this, just this jar with a little bit of oil in it. And so I think it's Elijah says to her, well, go and gather loads of jars, go and borrow loads of jars from people in the neighboring towns. And so she goes and gathers and gathers and gathers. And then as she pours the oil out, it just keeps running. It just keeps running. And we were saying that,

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her faith is directly proportional to the amount of jars that she collected. You know, if she had high, if she had low faith, she would have only gathered a few jars. But if she had high faith, she would have gathered more jars because I don't believe that God would have stopped pouring out that oil if she had more jars to fill. And so as a church, big C, you know, like church in England, whatever denomination that is, whatever network, whatever group,

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How do you, how, how are we preparing enough jars for the people that God is wanting to bring into the church? You know, I'm, I live in a bar in London called Wandsworth and there's 380,000. Yeah. Come on, Wandsworth. Yeah. There's 300, there's three. We live in the same area. It was just awesome. That's good. I never see you. Oh, I see. I see you once on the way to work. Yeah, that was funny.

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but there's 380,000 people alone in Wandsworth and it's like I go to a relatively medium sized church and I was saying some of the guys there they're

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380,000 people, if we had a hundred people turn up to church on a Sunday, like we wouldn't know what to do with them. You know, we wouldn't know where we wouldn't have the connect groups to put them in. We wouldn't have enough alpha leaders to, to, to bring them into. We wouldn't know how to help disciple them. And so that's a such a minute fraction of the number of people that,

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can come. And so I think actually this, this slow revival, this slow awakening that's being spoken about is, is the kindness of God helping us as a church to prepare for the outpouring that he wants to bring. Um, and so, you know, I chat to people across the country around, um, doing alpha and students and stuff. And some people will respond to me saying, Oh, we're just not really a student church. Like we don't really do students. And, um, you know, there's nothing directly wrong with that, but I, I, it does make me feel sad because, um,

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I was chatting to this amazing guy in Bristol, amazing church leader, really faithful, just really, you could say, like really loves Jesus so much. And he was saying, you know, we're not really a student church. But I was explaining to him, you know, there's two massive universities in Bristol. There's about 30,000 students there. And the biggest student church in Bristol has only 100 to 200 students meeting regularly there.

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So it's like, there's this huge gap of people that we're missing out on. And actually he was telling me that excitingly, he's had seen five students just rock up to his church, totally unchurched, randomly curious about it. And so how can we help everyone get prepared for when people start to just walk into our doors? I was meeting with a guy in...

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Sheffield and he was telling me this story about this girl who would pray to God but she didn't actually pray she just thought it was a one-way she was speaking at God and then she felt one night that God responded to her she said I thought this was a one-way thing like why are you responding to me so God's saying to her can I ask you a question um

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And she was like, sure, like, I guess. And God's like, are you sure? Like, are you sure? And she says, yeah, like, yeah. And then God's like, are you sure? And then she falls asleep. And so as she's asleep, she has this dream. And it's basically God gives her the option, you know, heaven or hell. It's like, you know, make a choice. Don't sit on the fence. I'm revealing myself to you. Make a decision. And so she wakes up totally freaked out, calls her only Christian friend and says,

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What do I do? And so her Christian friend starts helping her read through the Bible, reading through the Gospels and reading through the New Testament on Zoom.

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And as she is reading through it, she's reading about baptism. And she's saying, well, I think I need to get baptized. And so she's like, I don't know how to do that. Like, where do I even start? And she's like walking along the street one day and just sees on the side of the road, Baptist church. So she just walks in. I reckon they do baptism. So she literally walks into the church, says, do you guys do baptism? Yeah.

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And they're like, yeah. And so they baptised her on Easter Sunday this year. And it's like, how do we as a church, big C nationally, prepare for these people where God is going out and he's meeting with them in dreams, through their friends and prepare to welcome them.

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And so I'll build it. He's so doing something and it's so exciting to be a part of it. And I think I'm honored to be here with Alpha because I think Alpha plays a huge role in that. It does. And it creates a huge opportunity. It bridges that gap for sure.

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For sure. But hey, Jack, we've loved hearing your story and we appreciate everything you've shared. And bro, may the Lord be with you and walk alongside you. And hey, if you're curious, you've been watching this and you're just kind of like wondering about all of these things as well, I want to point you to you could try out for yourself in a church near you.

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Um, or just like Jack was saying, message your, uh, closest Christian friend and just ask them, Hey, what's all this Jesus stuff about? Um, but for now, thank you so much for listening, watching, um, and drop a comment on, on this little like series. We're doing alpha question marks. So drop a question mark in the chat and we will see you next time. Thanks for watching the way. It's been awesome. Bye for now.